Postgame Perspective: Season over? It’s starting to look that way for Eagles

Week 4: More of the same.

A slow start offensively. A lack of fundamentals. The inability to run. The inability to block. Injuries.

It's starting to become worse than the "Dream Team" season.

The Eagles third loss of the 2015 season, in a nutshell, summed up the Eagles lack of ability and failure to live up to enormous expectations, making you wonder why there were even such expectations at all.

At 1-3, it might just be time to start thinking the Eagles chances at making the playoffs are on life support.

Before you defend this team and say something along the lines of the season only being four weeks old, remember the Eagles opponents.

Yes, the Atlanta Falcons are proving that they are no average team this season. But the losses to the Dallas Cowboys and now Washington Redskins, two divisional opponents, are simply unacceptable and difficult to overcome.

The Eagles were 3-0 against NFC East opponents last season before Week 14. Two losses ended their playoff hopes. Losing two divisional games, at any stage of the season, is a difficult obstacle to maneuver.

And for a team that has the same problems after four games with no real end in sight, how do you look and say things will get better?

Sam Bradford is what he is. Against Washington in the second half, some of that confidence that made him so good in the preseason emerged. He threw three touchdown passes. He helped get the Eagles in position to win the game.

The fourth quarter was poorly managed on so many fronts.

The defense did allow the Redskins to march 90 yards on 15 plays in the final minutes of the game, a drive that lasted 5:39. But after playing for 41 minutes and without so many pieces, it almost doesn't seem fair to blame the defense for anything, not when they weren't spelled any time in the fourth quarter off the field.

The Eagles scored 20 seconds into the fourth quarter to take the lead. After that score, the offense was on the field for 4:23 of the next 14:14. A team cannot function like that and expect the performance to stand up.

It's the ineptitude of the offensive line — the overall lack of depth. It is the continued flaws in the running game and the abandonment of it altogether in the fourth quarter when the Eagles needed to run out the clock. It is the continued problems from Bradford and the receiving game, the off-target passes, the drops. It never stops.

This was supposed to be a finely-tuned offense. And there is no more room for excuses. It is not a good offense. It is an average at best defense.

When all is said and done, the defense can't play 60 while the offense plays 30. And the Eagles have relied too much on trying to recover from one slow half offensively to get in position to win while the defense is forced to pick up the pieces.

What makes matters worse is that this is now fully Chip Kelly's team. He made the decisions on personnel that are clearly not working after four weeks. So now what? It's time for Chip to face the music and admit some mistakes, not talk about chemistry and how things can get better.

It hasn't worked. It won't work in the future. And even if they do get it together, it's probably too late to save the season.

As long as trends hold, the 2015 season for the Philadelphia Eagles will be remembered as one of the biggest disappointments in Philadelphia sports history, leaving a long list of questions that will have to be answered in the offseason.

The last thing fans expected to be talking about this season was draft picks. But like their three Philadelphia counterparts in the other major sports, it appears 2015 is a season to build the future, not reap the benefits of the present.

Kevin Durso is managing editor for Eagledelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.